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Selling Movie DVD/Video

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ismertr

Hello.

I have produced a documentary that I would like to sell. There are a couple of websites that have offered to sell the DVD, in addition to my own website. It will be sold for around $20.

Does anyone know how this process works? What do I need these other sites to sign (legal issues)? Do I simply sell them a bunch of DVDs at $20 and let them re-sell them at whatever price they want? Or do I give them a bunch of DVDs and when they sell, I am given a check every month? :huh: What if I wanted to sell the DVD on Amazon?

The dvd should sell at least a few hundred copies, so I just don't want to be screwed like so many other naive filmmakers (which I am one of).

Thank for any help.

Robert
 
Each company is going to be so different that a single, ballpark, answer would be a waste of time for both of us.

The very best person to ask these questions to is ask the person who has offered to sell your show.

Yes - there will be legal issues.
Maybe, you'll have to provide the finished product (disc/box/printed cover)
Maybe the distributor will do it.
Maybe the distributor will allow to to sign a non exclusive deal - maybe not.

Since you don't want to be screwed (who does?) I suggest you ask the person who can actually make a decision. Be prepared as to exactly what YOU want then to do and don't sign a deal that you don't like no matter how much you want to sell your movie.

But seriously - you need to discuss this with the people offering to sell your movie...

Did I already mention that?
 
Selling DVDs...

ismertr said:
Hello.

I have produced a documentary that I would like to sell. There are a couple of websites that have offered to sell the DVD, in addition to my own website. It will be sold for around $20.

Does anyone know how this process works? What do I need these other sites to sign (legal issues)? Do I simply sell them a bunch of DVDs at $20 and let them re-sell them at whatever price they want? Or do I give them a bunch of DVDs and when they sell, I am given a check every month? :huh: What if I wanted to sell the DVD on Amazon?

The dvd should sell at least a few hundred copies, so I just don't want to be screwed like so many other naive filmmakers (which I am one of).

Thank for any help.

Robert
Click to expand...

You should definitely have some legal papers/contract(s) created for your protection... For one thing, you'll need to state PRECISELY what kind of resale rights you're giving to the owner(s) of the web sites... i.e., non-exclusive Internet sales or something like that... A lawyer would obviously know the proper terminology...

You have to be careful because there have been many many web site owners out there who ended up mass producing filmmaker's DVDs and selling them in other ways and the filmmaker couldn't do anything about it since the contractual agreements weren't precise enough. Your lawyer can leave NOTHING to chance because if there's a loophole, somebody will find it... i.e., Murphy's Law... LOL.

The other part of your post you'll need to rethink is your selling price to those you intend to let resell... You can't honestly expect them to pay $20 for each DVD for resale... They would have to mark it up to a minimum of $26 to $30 to make any kind of profit... How many DVDs do you think they can sell for that much? Basically, any vendor would be looking to get the DVD at least 50% off the retail... Some will want it even cheaper i.e., Amazon.com...

They're in it to make money and that's the bottom line... If they can't sell any DVDs because of the markup on top of the $20 you charged them, they'll either return the DVDs or sell them at a loss and not reorder... Which is another point that should be spelled out in your agreement... Will they be able to return any unsold DVDs? Book stores routinely return hundreds (sometimes thousands) of books that didn't sell back to the publisher for a refund and guess what? The publisher has to honor it... So be careful...

I have a friend in Northern California who has a struggling Mom and Pop video store and he goes through catalogs every week to order new tapes and DVDs... He pays for all of them up front. Once he owns them, that's it. He's stuck with them whether they rent or sell.

Depending upon your documentary, you might also want to look into distributors who sell to college campuses... I happened to find a catalog at our local college last year after watching a digitally projected DVD documentary... The film that we had just watched cost the college $118.00! Going through the catalog I found lots of other expensive documentary tapes and DVDs that apparently colleges all around the world purchase... I would imagine if you have a documentary on a subject matter that could easily relate to certain kinds of college classes i.e., history, political science, etc., you could probably charge more than $20 for your doc...

Good luck with it!

filmy
 
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